Official Street View Website

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Yesterday, a data protection "watchdog" officer in Switzerland told Google to immediately remove Swiss Street View coverage from the Internet, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. The group claims that Google did not follow the privacy conditions they apparently agreed to.

Actually, the only problem with the coverage is that some faces and license plates have not been blurred. Hopefully, Google will repair this imagery soon.

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I can understand the need to have people's faces and license tags blurred. Everyone has a right to basic privacy, and it shouldn't be important to the general public who a particular person is or what a specific auto license tag reads. That being said, it's important to realize that these are PUBLIC streets. People engaged in embarassing or compromising situations in public areas are not supposed to be doing those in public areas anyway. I am so disappointed about this development. I live in the US and can't just go to Switzerland. Too far away and too expensive a trip for me.

So far, Switzerland Street View is still up and running. Hopefully, a compromise will be reached with the privacy official so the service doesn't have to be removed.

I realize it's probably too costly to have employees examine the photos before publication. Too bad Google couldn't just create a volunteer program, whereby thousands of volunteers could examine the photos before publication, ensuring all photos and license plates are blurred and make a note of those that aren't. I would gladly donate time, because the value of the service is so great.